


die Verkleidung

by foxontherun



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hannibal (TV) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, BDSM, Dom/sub, F/F, F/M, First Time, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rimming, Slow Burn, Top Hannibal Lecter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 03:40:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15855483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxontherun/pseuds/foxontherun
Summary: Berlin, 1929. Young officer Wilhelm Graham has returned from the brutal front lines of the Great War to take up a post in the newly created Vice division of the Berlin police force, where one of his first assignments is to go undercover to investigate claims of criminal activity which have been issued against one of the most secretive and highly successful Berlin nightclub owners, a shadowy and glamorous man known to the outside world only as 'der Litauer' (the Lithuanian). Set in the height of the Weimar Republic, this fic was inspired by the gorgeous tv show 'Babylon, Berlin' - which, by the way, is available on Netflix (Go. Watch.)Babylon, Berlin AU





	1. De Temps En Temps

**Author's Note:**

> Back from the fic wilderness to spend some quality time with Will and Hanni. Unlike most of my fics which are, uh, mostly guided masturbation exercises, I'm going to try to make this one more plot-heavy and slow-burny. Probably not very historically accurate, my apologies in advance. Also I took two semesters of German in college and have since forgotten it all, so any German in this fic will be riddled with errors and the verbs will most likely be in the wrong place. If anyone wants to help with that and correct the more heinous mistakes, I welcome it.

 

 

"Halt! Polizei!"

As soon as the words leave Kriminalinspektor Will Graham's mouth there is a short pop and a zinging noise passes by his left ear. All of a sudden the night air is choky and bitter with the smell of cordite. Will throws himself to the right, careening around a smokestack and stumbling, landing on a rough bed of tar paper on the roof of the warehouse through which he has chased his suspect, outrunning and outstripping his colleagues who were left behind in the smoky den in which several naked girls had been lounging on an outsized red velvet divan, smoking suspiciously pungent cigarettes and occasionally fondling one another with a sort of gray apathy, the incessant clicking of a film camera providing a cold, blank eye to the proceedings. The man behind the camera had run, chased by a few lieutenants, but Will had taken off after one of the other men sitting in the shadows behind the brightly lit tableau. He hadn’t been in the Berlin police force for very long, but he knew the man by sight - Dieter Olbrich, widely known in the underground pornography scene as _Daumen_ , a man who liked young girls and boys. The younger the better.  He had chased Daumen through the streets, crowded with heavily painted women in minks and cloche hats and svelte, mustachioed young men squiring them about to dinner, to the cinema. It is Friday night, after all, and Berlin is an exciting city in which to be young.

But Will is old enough to know when to take cover. Dieter isn’t known in the force for violence, but he has had just about enough arrests and warnings that he must realize he is looking at serious prison time. Especially if those girls back in that den had been as young as they looked. Another bullet zings through the air above Will, shattering a window so close by that he can feel the sting of glass on his forehead and ears. He draws his weapon, noticing to his dismay that his shaking has increased to the point where he isn’t sure he’ll be able to hit anything even if he has the chance. The shaking is an aftereffect of his time in the War. Some days it feels like everything is an aftereffect of the War. He curses, under his breath, that he has no remaining vials of morphine on his person. The morphine is the only thing that calms the shaking - for some little time, perhaps, but it would come in handy during a gunfight.

“Daumen,” he calls out, relieved that his voice, at least, isn’t shaky. “Give it up. I’ve got backup coming. You’ve been recognized. There’s no way out of this for you. Do you really think you can go to ground once we put the word out that we have our eye on you?”

He hears a shouted curse in response, which is all that he really had hoped for - reason wasn’t going to solve this situation, but at least now he has a sense of where his quarry is hidden. Some forty meters away, to his right. He gauges his shakes. Does he have the control to wing the man? It would be risky to try to shoot his gun arm, he decides. He might shoot him in the head, and he doesn’t want another death on his conscience. He has quite enough of those to be going along with, haunting his sleeping hours and distracting him during his working days. He could go for the leg, of course, but a man with a wounded leg can still shoot…

Another bullet splinters the wood of the pigeon coop he is knelt beside, answering his question for him. This Dieter isn’t used to gunfights. He exploits people, hurts their minds, their bodies he hurts only by proxy. How many bullet wounds has he suffered in his adult life? Unlikely to be more than one, if any. The pain would distract him for long enough for Will to gain the advantage of the situation. Will ventures a peek above the cement wall. He’s right - Herr Olbrich hasn’t even had the sense to take cover. He’s standing completely unguarded, a clear path for a bullet, in a straight line. Will takes a breath, does his best to quell the shaking, which is now traveling up his arms and setting his heart thrumming in his chest. He cannot remain hidden here forever. Now is the time.

As Will stands, a plaintive strain of music can be heard in the warm night air, coming, no doubt, from an open window somewhere beneath the starry Berlin sky, and it’s with these words that he squares his body and steadies his gun, aiming at the criminal, who has swiveled his head, startled, towards the source of the sound.

_Ne me dis pas que tu m’adores_

_Embrasse-moi de temps en temps_

_Un mot d’amour c’est incolore_

_Mais un baiser c’est éloquent_

_Ne me fais pas de longs poèmes_

_Ne parle pas de tes émois_

_Pour me prouver combien tu m’aimes_

_De temps en temps embrasse-moi_

Will takes a last deep breath, and fires.


	2. der Litauer

Back at the station with his prisoner safely ensconced in an interrogation room, being shouted at by a red-faced detective and, thankfully, no longer Will’s problem, Will is accosted by a messenger and summoned to Kommissar Crawford’s office. He sits in front of the man’s impressively vast desk and tries not to squirm like a schoolboy called to the principal’s office for chewing bubblegum in class. Nothing much is known about ‘Jack’ Crawford in the force, save that he adopted the Americanized name ‘Jack’ after spending some time in the United States (was it Philadelphia? Or Baltimore?) where he had been trained in American law enforcement as part of a cooperative operation between the two countries. Here in Berlin they had gotten, in exchange, a gruff FBI Agent who had taken some time to adjust to the culture-shock, politically. Jack Crawford was altogether a different kettle of fish. He was a massively-built man, physically intimidating, and Will is not an easily intimidated man. He has only to raise his voice slightly, and young Kadetten quiver in their uniforms. Now he seems to have turned his attention to Will.

“Herr Graham,” Crawford nods over his expanse of desk. “We have a special assignment for you. A new kind of assignment, never attempted up until now. It requires certain...special skills. I have been reliably informed that you are an officer who might possess such.”

Will twists his mouth. “Have you?” He inquires, unable to keep a note of bitterness from his voice. He is aware of his reputation amongst his brother officers, and the coldness and suspicion with which he is treated.

“You underrate yourself, Graham,” Jack gives a slight smile. “You have made an outsized impression in your three months with us. Your superiors speak highly of your skills.”

Will isn’t convinced. “What skills exactly, sir, are we speaking of?” He knows he has certain abilities - his clearance rate is the highest in his department. This has not exactly boosted his popularity. He knows of several nicknames with which his more hostile colleagues have burdened him. Hexe is one. Verrückter is another. 

“We need an officer who is intelligent, quick-thinking, extemporaneous, good at improvisation, and an excellent judge of men,” Jack explains. “And one who can keep his mouth shut,” he adds as an afterthought. “You may not be alone in your wit or ability to think on your feet, but the ability to keep your cards close to the vest may be indeed a unique quality among the officer of this force.”

Will nods. This, at least, he recognizes. And who would he talk to, anyway? He has no friends among his colleagues. (He has, in point of fact, no friends outside his colleagues, if he’s being honest with himself.) And if he did, he understands the value of subtlety, of secrecy, in certain operations. “Ok,” he says at last, “I’d like to understand more of what exactly is detailed in this assignment.”

Jack takes a file folder from his desk. “Have you ever heard of a man named der Litauer?” Will shakes his head slowly. “Or a nightclub called Rabennest? On Mariannenstraße?” Will thinks, and shakes his head once more. “Well,” Jack says. “We have received certain….anonymous information, from a reliable informant, that this Lithuanian, whose name we have as one Hannibal Lecter, is running one of the largest Ringvereine in the state. His nightclub and his organization is allegedly involved in illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, loan sharking, fight-rigging, possibly narcotics distribution, and other practices, even less savory.” His broad face darkens. “Our informant has been missing for three months. We never knew his real name, but he has missed his last three meetings, and has delivered no letters in that time. More information on him can be found in this file.” He taps the manila folder. “I want you to crawl inside this case. Know it inside and out. Because it is your new assignment.” He sighs and shifts in his chair, looking at Will over the rims of steel spectacles. Uncomfortable with his gaze, Will looks around the office. It is simply, if lushly, decorated. Green velvet drapes on the windows. Plush leather furniture, gilt frames on the family photos. Crawford’s wife is an extraordinary beauty, and between them is a huge, cracked bell. Will decides that the photo was taken somewhere in the United States. No photos of children. On his wall, amongst the requisite medals and certificates, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, of all people, done in subdued oils. The silence has stretched uneasily at this point. Will reluctantly drags his eyes back to Crawford’s desk. 

“You said this was a novel sort of operation,” he manages. “So far it sounds like standard Vice work to me.” Jack smiles again, a broader smile, which transforms his face into something amiable, kind, even. There’s some element of pity there, as well, and Will bristles.

“It is indeed,” Jack peers more intently into Will’s face. “We’re calling this a Maske, or Verkleidung assignment. We will give you a false identity. A new name, a history, an alternate life. One that will detract suspicion from you as you infiltrate this Lithuanian’s organization. You will live as a different man for months, as long as it takes to gather enough damaging information on the mark to sustain a charge and a trial.” 

Will stares at him. Novel, indeed. As far as he knows, nothing of this sort has ever been proposed, much less implemented in the entirety of the Berlin police force. Nor elsewhere. He is sure of it. So many possible pitfalls. No wonder Crawford went on about improvisation and quick thinking. To live as another man, and for months….and all at once it becomes clear why Will has been selected for this assignment. It is his special gift - or curse, as he often thinks of it. He can see so clearly into the minds of the perpetrators he is sent to chase. He can even become them, in mind, in soul, if only for long enough to run them down. His empathy is so uncanny it has earned him an almost magical reputation in the force. Hexe, he thinks wearily. That’s what they want for this assignment. A witch. The bitterness steals over him again. They call him names behind his back, yet they use him when necessary. Such is life. Jack has begun speaking after a short pause.

“You will report solely to me,” he says, his attention turned to the file in his hands. “No one must know of your mission. It won’t hold up if not utter secrecy is maintained. Your colleagues will be told only that you are on independent assignment, attached to me. You will study the background we have prepared for you, and you will use it to gain entrance into this man’s ring, his close circle of associates. You will note what you see, ingratiate yourself into his confidence.” He sighs. “Herr Graham, how you do this is your own affair. We need not know what...methods you use to gain Herr Lecter’s esteem. Only that you do.”

Will understands. He is being given a free reign because he will have to blend seamlessly into a world of criminals and shady dealers. He may have to do things which a regular detective wouldn’t be allowed to do. And they didn’t want to know about it. They were putting it on him. Where to draw the line. And he begins to realize the scope of what is being asked of him. It will be dangerous, even possibly deadly. And it’s up to him to find a way to live with himself. He straightens his shoulders. Well, what of it? He has plenty of experience learning to live with himself. He’s an expert at it.

“Ok,” he says, and stands as Jack Crawford does. Crawford hands him the file. “I will study this, and formulate a plan.”

“The details of how and when you are to report are in the file,” Crawford says, “as are identification papers in your new identity, and a background file, as well as the names and information on several of Lecter’s associates. How you gain entry is up to you, and you are to report any notable progress as soon as possible. He hesitates, and then offers his hand.

“Be careful, Graham” are his last words. Will shakes his hand, and leaves, those last words echoing in his mind.


End file.
